At the start, we were promised a night of democracy by the moderator, Joe Starita, a journalism professor at UNL. Notably, Starita is not a professor of public policy, education, criminal justice, juvenile justice, school psychology or any of the many relevant fields to this discussion, thus adding to the list of curious choices for the panel. Due to his inability to control the event, it ended with dozens of people waiting for their turn to speak, including the youngest commenter– a middle school student who would be directly impacted by the plan on the table to place armed school resource officers in her school and middle schools across Lincoln.

In between, we were treated to rambling speeches, displays of white male privilege, religious proselytizing, outrageous outbursts from the panelist representing Parents United for Greater School Security, and wildly ineffectual moderation. However, there were also flashes of brilliance in the words of a brave few who stood up and called the problem by its name: guns.

Among the most moving of these statements was given by a young man who stated strongly, “I am white, male, mentally ill, I am autistic, I am a shut-in and I love my violent video games…What I have to say is we have a problem. We have a problem with guns.” He went on to say, “We need to put a frickin stop to this — nobody needs a f****** semi-automatic rifle.”

If you were at the town hall on Thursday and didn’t get a chance to speak, you can participate in democracy every second and fourth Tuesday at the LPS school board meetings. The next one is April 10th at the LPS District Office located at 5905 O Street. We invite you to join other concerned community members to ask about (1) funding to support the expansion of the Community Learning Centers to the Title I schools that currently do not provide before and aftercare and other supports; (2) the research on school research officers nationally and on LPS’s own data on SROs, and school discipline referrals by gender and racial group, and (3) why many community members were left unheard at the mismanaged town hall, including a middle school student who would be directly impacted by armed SROs in their schools.